Shamil | Imam Shamil |
Though Vadalov played no role in the 1999 Dagestan incursion led by Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab, following Russia's re-invasion of Chechnya that autumn he joined Khattab's Arab Mujahideen in Chechnya.
Maskhadov nominated himself for President of Ichkeria on 3 December 1996, for the January 1997 free democratic presidential and parliamentary elections held in Chechnya under the aegis of the OSCE, running primarily against Shamil Basayev and Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev.
In 1997 his father expelled him from the house and he moved to Chechnya, where he became an Avar interpreter of Arab warlord Khattab and the rogue Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev during their abortive Invasion of Dagestan in 1999.
During Moscow theatre seizure, Movsar Barayev and some 40 men and women led by him (dubbed the "29th Suicide Division" that also included members of two other Chechen rebel groups, brought together by Shamil Basayev) were killed in a raid by Russian special forces units Alfa and Vympel after having been incapicated by the chemical attack that has also killed at least 129 of their hostages.
It was later reformed and renamed State Defense Council Majlis al-Shura under Aslan Maskhadov in 2002, when Shamil Basayev was chosen as the Council leader.
In an interview with Echo Moskvy, in which she was discussing the 2008 South Ossetia War, Novodvorskaya said that Shamil Basayev was a democrat, given his support of Boris Yeltsin during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt and his participation in the government of Aslan Maskhadov in 1997, who had appointed Basayev Deputy Premier of the Ichkerian government.
Astemirov said that after the deaths of Sheikh Abdul-Halim and later Shamil Basayev, he sent a letter to the new Chechen rebel leader Dokka Umarov, asking him what he thought about declaring an Emirate that would replace the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.